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With 13 stars for colonies clamoring for freedom, I was first flown at Fort Stanwix in New York in 1777 — and then carried into battle for the first time at Brandywine in Pennsylvania. By war’s end, I was saluted as the emblem of a sovereign nation, new and free.

With 15 stars and 15 stripes, I survived shock and shell at Fort McHenry in 1814. With the aid of rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air, I was spied from afar at dawn’s early light by a patriot poet.

The nation's oldest Flag Day parade is held in Appleton, Wisconsin.(Photo: Ron Page/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

A half century later and with 33 stars and 13 stripes, I was saddened to see our nation divided. Our brothers’ blood was spilled in battle north and south. But by war’s end, Lincoln’s iconic words at Gettysburg prevailed — a unique nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I survived mustard gas and ghastly death in European trenches in World War I and, 48 stars strong, was hoisted by soldiers on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima in World War II.

I was carried into battle over frozen turf in Korea, waved more proudly at home with civil rights and women’s rights rising, and was saluted by a little boy as the horse-drawn caisson with his father’s casket passed by on the streets of our nation’s capital.

I lost sons and daughters in the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam, saw some succumb to Agent Orange, and witnessed renewed conflict about taking me, your American flag, to faraway lands like Iraq and Afghanistan.

When our nation celebrated its bicentennial birthday in 1976 — 200 years after declaring our independence — I was there. When people parade on the Fourth of July and other occasions, I generally lead the parade. As I pass by, children along the parade route often stand at attention and proudly salute me while their parents or a grandmother behind them might have a tear rolling down their cheek in memory of a loved one who served in uniform but didn’t make it back home.

I’ve fallen from favor for some incensed by actions our government takes. But I suffer in silence when abused or defiled since I represent all of our rights, including protesting and speaking our minds.

Look up to me as you salute or stand at attention. Pledge yourself to fulfill lofty goals symbolized by my heavenly blue field for 50 stars. With red for valor and zeal and white for purity and hope, look up and salute with pride what the patriot poet hailed as a worthy star-spangled banner. May I wave forever over the land of the free and the home of the brave.